Cabinet Pudding

From above, it looks like one big cookie.  This English pudding (steamed cake) is actually made from sponge cake and almond cookie bits, layered in a quart bowl, drenched in spiced custard and cooked in a water bath for about two hours.  If you already have some sponge cake and almond cookies lying around, it's impossibly easy to put together.  Unfortunately I chose to make the components from scratch and, while utterly delicious, it took all day and I ended up on a sugar high.  I just have to taste everything when it comes out of the oven.
The odd thing about this recipe is that while it only calls for one teaspoon of a special pudding spice mix (cardamom, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger), it supplies instructions to make one half-cup.  I cut the recipe down by about one-sixth and still have extra.  I think it will go delightfully in pumpkin pie.

This tastes like the best bread pudding I can remember.  It is smooth and rich with warm, sweet spices that I think would go better in the fall.  It isn't dense or rubbery like the canary pudding, or dry like the chocolate bread-crumb pudding.  The chopped almonds and plump, sweet-tart raisins provide a textural contrast to the soft sponge cake.  Unlike revenge, this one is best served warm with a glorious dollop of double cream or custard sauce.

Fresh Corn Tamales with Basil and Cilantro (Humitas)

Summer's here, folks.  From my brief experience, it seems like Rhode Island has had more than its usual share of 90-degree-plus days.  The upside is that our farmer's markets are overflowing with delicious fresh vegetables and fruits.  Today it was hard not to buy more than I could carry.
These tamales are made of fresh corn kernels pureed with basil, cilantro, white corn meal, baking powder, sugar, salt, and onions sauteed in butter.  The batter is then cooked for a few minutes in the same pan as the onions, tied up in corn husks, and steamed for 45 minutes.
The raw salsa is made of cilantro, onion, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice and salt all pureed together.  It adds a burst of freshness to the creamy polenta-like base.  If I were to make these again, I think I'd cook the tamales longer as the recipe suggested.  I didn't want to over-kill the fresh corn and herby flavors, but as it was they were a little on the doughy side. I'd also add some chiles (again, as the recipe suggested), which I didn't have on hand today.  They'd really benefit from a spicy kick.

Chicken Soup with Green Plantain Dumplings

On the outside, green plantains look like giant green bananas.  Inside, the flesh is a bright cantaloupe color and quite unwilling to separate from the peel.  They aren't soft or sweet like bananas, but rather hard and starchy like potatoes.  When shredded, pureed and mixed with flour and seasonings, they cook up into very stiff, chewy dumplings.

The soup in the background of this recipe is really something special: homemade chicken broth seasoned with the bright green flavors of bell peppers, oregano and cilantro.  I haven't made a good chicken broth in a long time, and this one is just bursting with the flavors of summer.  The authors describe it as "sunshiny."  

I started with a whole chicken and simmered it with an onion, green pepper, and two teaspoons of salt just until the meat was cooked.  After removing the meat, I returned the bones to the pot for about two and a half more hours.  When the broth was done, I prepared a pureed sofrito (green pepper, onion, oregano, cilantro, olive oil) and cooked it in a different pan for a few minutes, added the broth and cooked chicken bits, and simmered those for a few minutes longer.  I cooked the dumplings in the simmering stew for about ten minutes until they were all floating.  Since I didn't have any parmesan, I served these with some aged cheddar, which gives it a nice kick.  The second time around I added some fresh corn to the soup, and next time I'm going to cook some lentils in the leftover broth and serve it over rice.  I love recipes that keep on giving.

Brazilian Coconut Tamales (Pamonhas)

I did as the authors suggested and used fresh corn, fresh shredded coconut, and freshly pressed coconut milk to get a taste of pamonhas at their best.  I also used unrefined sugar (Rapadura) for a smooth caramel flavor.  

I got the corn from the farmer's market, cut off the kernels and saved the husks.  I bought a coconut at Whole Foods that turned out to be rotten on the inside.  I've never had a rotten coconut before!  It was very sad.  So I bought another coconut and cracked it open, laboriously separated all of the meat from the shell (nearly cutting off all of my fingers in the process), cleaned it with a vegetable peeler, and shredded it in the food processor.  I used some freshly shredded coconut for the recipe and the rest to make coconut milk.  I put some of the extra coconut milk in my oatmeal the next day to keep things interesting.

When mixed with a little cornmeal, sugar, and butter, the corn-coconut batter ended up pretty sloppy and I had a very hard time getting it to stay in the husks long enough to tie them up.  They steamed for thirty minutes.  The cooked pamonhas have a texture kind of like corn grits, only thicker and creamier, with the sweet and soft flavors of corn, coconut and caramel mingling beautifully.

Malaysian Steamed Banana Muffins

Here we have a steamed version of banana bread.  It's simply flour, baking powder & soda, bananas, eggs, oil, sugar and a pinch of salt all mixed together (not too thoroughly), sprinkled with coconut and steamed for 20 minutes.  The result is soft, a little chewy (I'm used to crumbly whole wheat baked goods), with just the right touch of sweetness.  The coconut adds a hint of the exotic to an otherwise commonplace taste.  These would be good with chopped pecans mixed in.

Guyanese Pepperpot Stew with Dumplings

Pepperpot is an incredible stew made with beef, chicken and pork.  Aside from hot peppers, it contains no vegetables of any kind. This versions includes some soft dumplings that soak up the flavor of the broth.  The meat ends up sweet, spicy and fall-apart tender.  Served over rice, I could eat this all day.

I changed the recipe some.  Most significantly I was unable to find cassareep, but I will be on the lookout for it for the rest of my life.  And when I find it, I will make this again to find out how it was actually supposed to taste.  Cassareep is said to look like molasses, but has more of a pure burnt sugar taste instead of the minerally-medicinal flavor.  I don't know of any Caribbean markets in Providence, so I looked in the international aisles of the Stop-n-Shop where I found corn husks.  In the most Caribbean section, I found a container of molasses next to a container of something called "Burnt Sugar," which I hadn't heard of.  The label boasted of a true West Indian taste.  I thought this might be a suitable substitute for cassareep.  I later regretted my decision when I realized that it was basically a sugar syrup with caramel color, which isn't the best thing for your health.  It's no longer in my cupboard.  I used half of what the recipe called for and made up the balance with honey.

I simmered 3 1/2 pounds of beef shoulder with a quarter-pound of cooked bacon in a cinnamon-clove-thyme-infused broth until the beef was tender.  Then I added in a whole chicken, cut into pieces.  When everything was cooked, I removed the meat and added the dumplings.  I think these might be my favorite type of dumplings - a simple batter spooned into simmering broth.  They fluff as they cook and all of the flavor seeps into every nook and cranny.

Why this Christmas dish is featured in the July section I don't know... perhaps because of the association with barbecue.  I'd love to make this in December.  Perhaps I will have found cassareep by then.

Pork and Shrimp Shao Mai

I know shao mai (shu mai etc.) are supposed to have paper-thin skins, but this is the best I could do with a rolling pin.  The filling is made of ground pork and shrimp, potato starch, sugar, salt, pepper, mirin, soy sauce and sesame oil all whipped together.  I cut back on the salt and they were still emphatically salty.
The dough is made like an egg pasta rolled as thinly as possible, stuffed with the filling, pinched together like a purse and steamed for twenty minutes.  It may have been because I used free-range pork, but the filling was firmer than I expected.  The combination of flavors and the firm texture made it taste more like sausage ravioli than shao mai.  Still tasty but a little off-target, I'd say.

Rice Dumplings with Sweet Peanut and Coconut Filling (Nuo Mi Ci)

These are simple and delicious!  The filling is made of 2 tablespoons grated coconut, 1/3 cup chopped roasted peanuts, 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons sugar and  1 1/2 tablespoons of palm oil.  The dough is made from a cup of white rice flour, a tablespoon of potato starch and about half a cup of boiling water, all mixed together until it reaches a modeling clay consistency.
I divided the dough into four balls, shaped each one into a bowl and sealed about two tablespoons of the filling inside.  I steamed them for ten minutes, rolled them in flaked coconut, and that's it!
The coconut really brings out the toasty flavor of the peanuts.  The rice shell is chewy and bland, making a sturdy backdrop for the sweetness of the filling.

Bread Pudding with Cherries and Blueberries (Kirschen Serviettenknodel)

I thought I'd add blueberries to this cherry bread pudding recipe as a festive nod to Independence Day.  The whipped cream, which completes the red-white-and-blue theme, is another tasty deviation from the original, which calls for cherry compote or cream sauce.  I made this with fresh local cherries, blueberries, milk, eggs and homemade bread.  The flavor was delicious but I wish the texture had been softer and lighter.

I think the reason my bread pudding goes rubbery is that I start with too-sticky bread.  The last couple of times I've made steamed bread puddings I've used white bread made from scratch.  The first time I used bread flour; this time I used all-purpose.  Both times I used an overnight ferment.  I baked the bread on a hot stone at 450 F for longer than the recipe recommended and the crumb was still stubbornly small and sticky.  This is troublesome.  I have read many books on the theory, chemistry and techniques of bread baking and used to be good at it, but seem to have fallen out of practice.  If I were to dedicate the resources to making this recipe again, I would like to try my tried-and-true whole wheat loaf recipe.  That loaf still comes out with a small crumb, but the whole wheat bread is naturally more crumbly than white and therefore less likely to turn into rubber.  Also, I think my bread would have come out better if I used some tenderizers like fat, milk or sugar.  The last two times I made woefully sticky bread it was nothing but flour, water, salt and yeast.
Anyway, to bring this recipe together, I combined a cup of scalded milk with 3/4 cup semolina flour, 1/4 cup sugar, a sprinkle of cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, 1/2 lb chopped cherries and whole blueberries, and six cups of crustless toasted butter-fried bread cubes.  I mixed all this together as best I could and plopped it in the middle of a buttered cloth, tied it up and sunk it in a pot of boiling water for an hour.
I can imagine this being absolutely heavenly when made with a light, open-crumbed baguette.